Blog Archives

White Bean Chicken Chili

hapatite-1070773

This chili is one of my favorite uses for rotisserie chicken whenever the local store is having a sale on it.Even though it has a lot of ingredients, it comes together very quickly once you have everything measured out.

It’s warm, spicy, and incredibly healthy. It tastes even better the next day after all of the spices have soaked into to the beans and chicken, intensifying. You could halve this recipe to yield a smaller amount, but this can be frozen for up to 3 months in an airtight container. I like to top mine with some cheese, chia seeds, or non-fat yogurt as well as the cilantro, but you can dress it up with anything!

White Chicken Chili

Pan-Seared Cod with Curried Basmati Rice, Snow Peas & Mint

11252394_10102153273374706_7489501876562208268_n

Thanks to my lovely friend Laetitia at French Twist D.C., I recently got a free Blue Apron meal box delivered. It was a welcome treat after returning from a week long family vacation that left me exhausted and not wanting to go anywhere near a grocery store.

This took all the work out and left me with a pre-measured meal for two that was pretty easy to whip together, healthy, and tasted good to boot.

One of my favorite things about this service is the fact that everything is in one place on the large, glossy recipe card. You can get the printable recipe for this cod at Blue Apron, or look below.

I usually don’t like snow peas because they are stringy and tough, but these were snappy and fresh tasting. I had never thought of using lime zest in this way before and was glad I did. I do think it’s a bit wasteful with a lot of extra (mostly recyclable) packaging, including the ice packs, but it is a nice occasional treat to come home and have the grocery shopping and meal planning already done!

I can’t wait to try my other two meals this week: Turkey Steam Buns with Quick Cucumber-Radish Kimchi and Seared Pork with Sautéed Spinach & Smashed Potatoes.

Curry Pork Tenderloin

hapatite-1070448

For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired up with Sally from Bewitching Kitchen. Sally is a super smart and fit biochemist transplant from Brazil by way of  California, Paris, and now Manhattan. There are many recipes on Sally’s site, including Carrot Orzo, Farfalle with Kale Pesto, Biscoff Oatmeal Cookies, Speculaas, Pumpkin Espresso Loaf, Nutella Drop Cookies, Snickerdoodles with a Twist, Butterscotch Brownies, Pumpkin Shrimp Curry, Sabu’s Spicy Coconut Chicken, Lemony Chicken Curry, Bon Bon Chicken, and Clay Pot Pork. I could tell through my recipe selection that I was really in the mood for curry, so I chose Green Curry Pork Tenderloin. Instead of buying green curry paste for this recipe I used the yellow curry paste I had in the pantry.

This was a very good recipe that tasted great. It did take a little while to get all of the recipe components prepared and we still needed to make a supplemental side to go with the protein. The pork was cooked perfectly and went great with the sauce. The marinade was easy to make, though we substituted the reduced sodium soy sauce with regular soy sauce diluted with water. We don’t have a grill in our building so we roasted it in the oven and finished with the broiler. I must admit that I was intimidated when it came time to make our own curry sauce, but it came together pretty easily. The sauce was quite mild so we would up the heat next time, especially since this recipe made tons of extra sauce.

The best thing about this dish were the candied nuts on top. We couldn’t find pumpkin seeds so replaced them with shelled pistachios. The nuts were quite addictive and we used the leftovers to top a salad the next day.

hapatite-1070451
Continue reading →

Super Smooth Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

hapatite-1060934

Sometimes I feel silly buying things in the grocery store that can easily be made at home. Other times I’m lazy and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Hummus is one of those things (like pomegranate seeds) that have huge markup at the store for the sake of convenience.

Since I’ve found a hummus recipe I like, I’ve vowed to (almost) never buy hummus at the store again. This hummus comes together in a food processor and it makes more than twice the amount that a standard container holds. It’s very creamy and smooth and it is easy to add flavors to. I had a jar of roasted red peppers and mixed some in while this was processing.

Dig in with chips, crackers, or pita bread. This is also a great, flavorful spread on a sandwich or wrap.

Fast & Easy Black Bean Soup

hapatite-1060923

For some reason I don’t make too many soups. Something about them just seems daunting. This soup is fast, easy, and healthy. The best part is that it only uses one pot and one blender (or food processor). If you have an immersion blender, then this is truly a one-pot meal.

hapatite-1060927

I’ve made this soup several times in the past month and it’s easy to customize. It’s also pretty cheap to make, especially if you stretch it by adding some rice or quinoa to it. I’ve also added frozen corn and peas to it to add some more nutritional value. As it is, it’s under 500 calories per warm, hearty, bowl.

The version pictured here has vegan chorizo in it instead of dried chorizo, and is topped with some chopped gouda and sesame seeds.